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It’s been over eight years since the Fyre Festival crashed and burned, and an attempt to revitalize the ill-fated venture recently met a similar fate after Billy McFarland attempted to revive it in Mexico. Now, it appears he’s officially waving the white flag, though anyone who thinks they can capitalize on the toxic brand can try securing the rights on eBay.
In 2018, the internet was treated to peak Schadenfreude courtesy of Fyre Festival , the disastrous gathering that drew hundreds of people to an island in the Bahamas before being subjected to the millennial version of Lord of the Flies while chronicling the disaster on social media.
There was a lot of blame to go around, but most of it ended up on the shoulders of Billy McFarland, the co-founder and fraudster who was ultimately sentenced to six years in prison and ordered to pay $26 million to compensate the investors and participants he deceived before the House of Cards he built collapsed in spectacular fashion.
McFarland was released in 2022 and suggested it was only a matter of time before he tried to bring the Fyre Festival back from the dead.
It tried to do just that with a rebooted version that was supposed to be held in Mexico this year, but the event — which featured tickets ranging from $1,400 to $1.1 million — was canceled after officials in two different cities where it was being held said they were unaware of its existence .
At this point, it doesn’t seem like the Fyre Festival brand is something most people would want to be associated with, considering the amount of controversy it’s been mired in. However, that didn’t stop a bidding war from unfolding after McFarland opted to list it on eBay.
On Monday, a listing titled “Own Fyre Festival – Iconic Brand, Trademarks, IP, Social Media Assets & More” appeared on the auction site with a starting price of a single cent , and as of this writing, it has already received over 100 bids that have driven the current asking price up to just over $200,000.
The description states that the winner will receive not “just a name,” but a “global attention engine” complete with the rights to the Fyre Festival trademark, all preexisting social media accounts and domain names, marketing assets, and access to the email addresses and phone numbers of people who have shared the brand’s branding with the brand in the past.
The auction is currently scheduled to end on July 15th, and it will be very interesting to see what the final bid ends up being.
